"Blizzard seeks to protect the sanctity of the StarCraft II gaming experience."

Blizzard Entertainment has filed a lawsuit alleging that the ValiantChaos MapHack (VCMH) infringes on the company’s copyright for StarCraft II. The hack appears to allow its users to detect invisible enemy units and observe previously unknown parts of the map among other things.

“Unfortunately, the gaming experience of legitimate players of StarCraft II is under near constant attack by cheaters, scammers, and other wrongdoers seeking to exploit StarCraft II for their own illegitimate ends," the company states in its suit. "For this reason, Blizzard seeks to protect the sanctity of the StarCraft II gaming experience through both technical and contractual measures.

“Defendants’ VCMH program, among other things, permits its user to view areas of the game ‘map’ that are normally obscured, to monitor the other player’s unit movements, and to access other information that normally is not available to the player. VCMH also automates certain tasks within the game. These gameplay changes give the player using VCMH a significant competitive advantage over others.”

Further Reading

Blizzard doesn't want people using unauthorized programs to play its games, …

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Los Angeles earlier this week, names “John Does 1-10” as defendants. It does not even name a website or entity. A Google search for “ValiantChaos MapHack” points to Valiantchaos.net, which is owned by one Troy Mason of Stafford, Queensland, Australia. Each copy of the VCMH seems to be for sale for A$62.50 ($57).

A history of victory

In the past, Blizzard has been quite litigious against those that seek to modify its games in some way.

Famously, MDY, the maker of the authorized Glider bot used in World of Warcraft, asked the court for a declaratory judgment that its product did not infringe on Blizzard’s intellectual property rights. But MDY lost, having initially won a judgment of $6 million, which was later upped to $6.5 million in 2011 following a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Blizzard was also successful in a 2005 case called Davidson & Associates v. Jung, where a Battle.net alternative, the “bnetd project,” was found to infringe against the company’s intellectual property.

Given this history, it may be relatively easy to unmask the unknown creators of VCMH by subpoenaing Web hosts or ISPs, according to Jessica Litman, a law professor at the University of Michigan.

“They [would] need to show a decent chance of prevailing [to unmask the John Doe defendants], and given that all the cases before have gone Blizzard’s way, it’s pretty likely that a court would order those folks identified,” she told Ars.